


Finally Free Falling

by Quoth_the_Raven_Nevermore_Nevermore



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: LITERALLY, and he doesn't deal with secrets well, and it ends very badly for him, and merlin, angstyness is angsty, at all, because arthur is insensitive, he locks his problems away, just a warning, merlin kind of goes insane, mostly merlin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 03:33:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quoth_the_Raven_Nevermore_Nevermore/pseuds/Quoth_the_Raven_Nevermore_Nevermore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a window in Merlin's tower. It's not big, and they hadn't bothered in adding any shades or bars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Blue Bird l

 

 

 

 

When Merlin was small he used to run around the house pretending he could fly, because he'd always admired the blue birds outside his bedroom window. He remembers wondering what it was like to truly fly.

 

To be _free_.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

It happens in the most unlikely way.

 

That is to say, out of all the ways Merlin had imagined while laying in bed at night staring at the pack he kept packed just in case, of all the ways he had hoped this confrontation could have gone it wasn't this, wasn't Arthur staring at him in what he pinpointed as fear.

 

And Merlin is cold – so very cold, when he feels steel against his neck.

 

" _Sorcerer_."

 

Arthur breathes and Merlin nods his head, his eyes having faded now to their blue color. it is not the most _true_ description of his nature, but a sorcerer uses magic and to Arthur that is all there is, he feels himself wilt at the thought, to think that he thought they were all the same. He feels the sword press down harder, cutting off air.

 

He wonders if his blood will stain the forest floor.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Arthur doesn't kill him, doesn't order the knights to do it either.

 

Instead he gathers shackles and twine and ties Merlin to the horses. Merlin doesn't complain because while the cuffs suppress his magic, he's not dead. The _wrongness_ that the cuffs brought he could deal with, he knew he could; just like he knew that there was a part of him that could break the cuffs with a single thought.

 

But he won't because if he does then how can Arthur trust him?

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Arthur doesn't throw him in the dungeons instead he is confined to a tower that takes over the cuffs job. It's the _worst_ kind of torture.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Merlin dreams. He dreams of Morgana's eyes as he gave her the poison, that moment when she realized who had done it, the moment betrayal had been the only thing he could see in her deep eyes.

 

He dreams of what will happen when she is finally caught. This wild creature who wasn't _human_ anymore, who'd been so consumed by _hate_ , and _fear_ , and _betrayal_ that the once vibrant woman that played with the children in the courtyard was gone replaced with something more monster then woman. In his dreams, she rages at him, tells him it's all his fault that things had ended the way they had, taunts him with all his mistakes and then she pushes a knife through Arthur's chest, then Merlin's and finally her own.

 

Merlin wakes up screaming. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Once he tries magic.

 

A simple little thing he'd been doing since he was small and lighting the candles in his bedroom while his mum slept so he could play a bit longer with his favorite toy, a little stuffed dragon that he had always remembered having.

 

The _pain_ though, is new.

 

He'd never felt like this, felt like his bones were melting and that everything else was melting along with them, he screams and collapses, hitting his head on the side table and knocking his knee's on the floor, but that pain is nothing compared to the other pain that makes him feel as if he is being torn apart. He retches, but there is nothing in his stomach to come up, the guard that brings him meals that are slid through a flap in the door hasn't come in a day and as such he hasn't eaten.

 

It makes it all that more unbearable.

 

He screams well into the morning but no one comes and when it's over he crawls on his hands and knees to the small pallet, where exhausted – he finally sleeps without the nightmares that had become his only friend.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

He tries to call for Kilgharrah once, but it ends worse than his attempts to light a candle.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Sometimes he wonders why no one has come to see him.

 

He hopes it's just that their forbidden to not that anything has happened to them or that they don't want to see him. He tries to get something out of the guard that has begun to bring him meals again but he doesn't get anything except a scowl.

 

 

He hopes that Gaius isn't working too hard, and that someone was helping him because he wasn't as young as he once was and he his joints ached and sometimes his hands shook too much for him to hold a knife steady enough to chop up herbs.

 

He hopes that Gwen is okay and happy, that she isn't feeling overwhelmed with all the work she has since she was promoted to head servant, he hopes that she has someone to talk to that will sit and listen while she says what she needs to say without interrupting her.

 

He hopes that Gwaine isn't doing something stupid that will get him thrown in the stocks or tossed from Camelot, he hopes that he too has someone to talk to because the man deserved an ear to hear his troubles.

 

He hopes that Arthur isn't being too much of a prat to everyone, he hopes that he doesn't see this as to much of a betrayal, he hope that he can overcome his prejudices and see that magic isn't evil only people and he sometimes hopes that Arthur will come and save him .

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

(Sometimes he also wonders how the man he loves could do this to him)

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
Merlin writes letters in a leather bound book that he found stashed in a corner. He prays that if he dies in this room then someday they will be delivered to the people he loves, he hopes that people will read them and remember that he was more then a sorcerer.

  
  
More then what destiny, prophecy, and fate could predict, more then they could ever predict.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Merlin dreams that they hate him.

 

 

Dreams that they laugh while he cries, laugh while he screams, and finally, laugh as he burns. He wakes up shaking and praying it isn't true.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

There is a window in Merlin's tower. It's not big, and they hadn't bothered in adding any shades or bars.

 

 

But Merlin loves it, it's his only view into a world other than the one he has inside this room – this hellish room. Merlin loves the endless blue of the Camelot summer sky and he loves the clouds that form shapes but most of all – Most of all Merlin loves the birds. They're so free, so happy so carefree, they can go anywhere they want and they can talk in their little chirps to anyone.

 

He can't remember that freedom.

 

So one day he finds himself sitting on the ledge, his head bent so as not to hit it on the cold stone. And the next he get's braver as he watches a bird merely sweep down, a worm in its mouth to feed its lover. Until one day he jumps, and Merlin who has been caged for too long – Well, he finally feels free in a way he has never known in all the years that he has lived, and he knows that in that moment, he's - finally, finally - flying.

 

 

 


	2. Blue Bird ll

 

 

 

Arthur never thought he'd be burying Merlin.

 

But then again he never thought the man would be a sorcerer either. He was wrong about both, he wonders what drove Merlin to jump, he wonders how someone's life could get so bad that they would end it in such a way. It had taken two days for Merlin to finally die.

 

Two days when Arthur sat in his room until he could no longer stand it and finally his feet took him down to Gaius's chambers to find that he was too late.

 

A bloody _hour_ too late.

 

The flames climb higher into the night sky, and Arthur thinks he can see a blue colored bird flying.

 

He imagines its Merlin. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Hunith was inconsolable for three days, until on the forth she emerged giving him a tired smile and asking that he tell her everything, he isn't surprised when she turns him out that night to the hay loft with a bitter smile. He takes a fistful of ashes in a small jar with him when he leaves the next morning.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Arthur dreams of Merlin.

 

He dreams that Merlin is smiling at him, while they are hunting or doing some other meaningless task and he dreams that when Merlin finally tells him about his magic that he, instead of locking him away, gave him a smile and told him it was alright. He dreams about their bodies entwining in ways that make Arthur blush when he wakes.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Gaius comes to him one night and hands him a leather bound book filled with letters. He gives Gwen and Gwaine theirs and makes arrangements to send Hunith hers, but he doesn't touch his. It sits in a tiny drawer at his desk gathering dust and being buried under other bits of meaningless clutter He can't bring himself to read it, he can't.

 

He'd rather wonder then to truly understand.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Arthur didn't cry, he _didn't,_ and he wonders why. What kind of person doesn't cry at something like this? What kind of person was _he_?

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He comes to a decision on a Tuesday.

 

He lifts the ban on magic on a Friday and proposes a festival the following week.

 

The first to come forth are the druids who give him smiles and wish him the best of luck on his destiny. They call him the Once and Future King and tell him he has their trust. It's almost the end of festival when a little girl that identifies herself as Emilyn rushes up to him and gives him a flower for Emrys, when he asks her why she smiles a gap tooth grin and tells him it's a thank you for bringing magic back and for saving her last year.

 

He doesn't have the heart to tell this little child that her Emrys is dead.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

(Arthur doesn't know when he realized it but he does know that he loved the beautiful man that saved him time and time again and didn't ask for anything in return.)

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He visits Gaius weekly now and the man smiles a bittersweet smile and spins him tales of a boy born with magic who grew up never knowing why he was given these gifts.

 

He spins tales about how this little boy who chased butterflies made out of fire, grew to become a man who would give anything for a prince. He spins tales about a druid girl and a boy who tried to give his life in the place of another's only to find that things are never that easy.

 

He tells him tales about the man they called Emrys and how he was the most powerful warlock there ever was, and ever will be.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

(Arthur comes away each week questioning everything he ever knew.)

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He finds it in the corner buried behind the wardrobe while he's searching for a piece of paper.

 

It's old and faded, and there are places where the fabric is paper thin but it's still the same red that he'd grown used to and didn't know how much he loved until it was gone. He presses it to his nose and when he finds he can barely smell its owner, well it finally strikes him and then – Only then, does he finally cry.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He takes his handful of ashes to a clearing in the woods where they had once camped and talked well into the morning hours.

 

He stands their staring at the small gray boulders and thinking that they looked so much more vivid back then. Then finally he opens his hands and watches as the gray dust scattered in the wind. He tilts his head back and closes his eyes and he swears that in that moment he could feel Merlin running his hands through his hair instead of the wind.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Arthur marries Gwen but they both know that their love isn't the kind they would have chosen for themselves if given the choice. Thiers is about shared comfort and practicability. The love they dreamed about filled with passion and fire is long gone.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Arthur is on his deathbed when he finally remembers the letter and with shaking fingers he opens it, and throws his head back laughing; he dies like that with the laugh lines still having not faded around his eyes and mouth.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_I love you, you stupid prat._

_Merlin_

 

 

 


End file.
